Dave Troy Dec 22, 2022

The red-brown alliance is sending out very strong “anti-war” signals today. Take note; these are the people who will 1) sell Ukraine into enslavement and death, 2) undermine and aim to crash the dollar, 3) threaten Medicare and Social Security, 4) promote Putin’s vision of a “multi-polar world.”

Willis Carto, Aleksandr Dugin, David Duke would all be very pleased with these quislings.

Show threadDave Troy Dec 22, 2022

Don’t know this history? Read up.

https://washingtonspectator.org/paranoia-on-parade/

Paranoia on Parade | Washington Spectator

How reactionary grievances have helped bring America’s democracy to the brink of collapse

Washington Spectator
Show threadDave Troy 
A lot of people call the red-brown alliance “horseshoe theory,” which I actively dislike because it implies it happens by accident. A lot of the activity we are seeing is engineered and intentional, and has roots that go back a very long time. Francis Parker Yockey, McCarthy’s speechwriter, really articulated the alliance in the postwar era. And it’s anti-democratic in nature. Watch out for the Republicans, Libertarians, and Democrats who criticize Zelensky and Ukraine today.
Dec 22, 2022 at 3:12pmWeb
Show threadmastadon is a waste of timeDec 22, 2022
@davetroy Medea Benjamin is one example. Much of the left is "fake" in service of autocracy
Show threadPeter Backes Dec 22, 2022
@davetroy I dunno - a 'forged' horseshoe seems like a good analogy 🧲
Show threadDave Troy Dec 22, 2022
@peterwbackes yeah I really don’t like it. ;) don’t use it around me. I get punchy.
Show threadPeter Backes Dec 22, 2022
@davetroy lol, okay
Show threadAliideDec 22, 2022
@davetroy I still sometimes find it useful in explaining that there are indeed points of intersection/commonality – I hear so much "how can tankies be colluding with the right wing/capitalists when they have nothing in common" – but do you have any recommended reading you can link on the more orchestrated aspects? Would love to learn more and be able to suggest reading to others on this
Show threadDave Troy Dec 22, 2022
@aliide the piece I linked is a long detailed account that covers that terrain. There isn’t any other one single accessible source I can recommend right now. Anyway, it’s reductive; can be a way to start talking about the real history of it. But deeper understanding requires a pretty wide survey of sources. Kevin Coogan’s book “Dreamer of the Day” covers Yockey, which will get at a lot of it.
Show threadAliideDec 22, 2022
@davetroy ah, I missed the linked piece and only saw the post I responded to. Cheers!
Show threadTed Seuss Dec 22, 2022
@aliide @davetroy Snyder, Applebaum, and Cotlar are the ones to get on your team. They each have a treasure of info which together with yours will uncover a very important part of this picture. Cotlar doesn’t know too much about Yockey, but he knows plenty about all those that encircled the fella, and fanned his BS.
Show threadLady Liberty 🗽Dec 22, 2022
@davetroy yes absolutely 💯! Time to hunt down secret Nazi terrorist groups. Learn from history
Show threadTed Seuss Dec 22, 2022

@davetroy red brown alliance is more complicated than the oversimplification of the horseshoe theory, which implies that the extreme ends of the horseshoe are ideologically close together.

Academicians, political scientists, and peer reviewed research criticize the theory as an oversimplification of history.
Keep in mind Stalin was not far left, he was far right, as was Hitler. Red-Brown alliance made sense to Yockey at that time, because he saw shared values. They are still far right in Rus!

Show threadMel LeeDec 22, 2022
@davetroy What about a Zen diagram? I always like one to see commonality and differences.
Show threadTed Saves Everything Dec 22, 2022

@davetroy

Agree. I now use horseshoe but I dislike the oversimplification, I almost feel obligated to use that or "extremes" plural to allow the most readers to understand because the astroturfs have warped all the classical political terms so badly moving the goalposts and collective symbols or monaker or slogan over the years that it seems like the one analogy everyone picks up on.

I dislike "useful idiot" too because it undermines severity of the targeting and cultivation that's happened

Show threadRobin from Colorado 🇺🇸🇺🇦Dec 23, 2022
@davetroy 💯 people Like Jimmy Dore drive me nuts because I know they are playing their audience
Show threadJeff BishopDec 23, 2022

@davetroy I'm not sure I agree that "horseshoe theory" implies anything happening by accident. Certainly horseshoes don't! The two ends of a literal horseshoe are designed to be near each other on purpose; no reason a figurative one couldn't be, too.

My objection to the horseshoe metaphor is the break between the two ends. Sure, they're close but not *that* close, with no clear path from one end to the other. In that sense, a human shoe or a (full) circle may be the better analogy.

Show threadJeff BishopDec 23, 2022
@davetroy but that bridge certainly *is* there. Mussolini went straight from his socialist roots to inventing fascism. Musk similarly went straight from center-left (or maybe far-left, but keeping quiet about most issues?) to far-right as quickly and effortlessly as anyone ever moves between center- and far-right, center- and far-left or center-left and center right. And he wasn't a mainstream Clinton, Bush or Romney supporter for even one day in between.
Show threadSSFC KDT (MOVED)Dec 23, 2022
@davetroy It's not horseshoe theory. It's an obsession with totalitarianism. Red brown alliances don't happen because the groups share values on economics, politics, rights. They happen because it's actually order and control that they are primarily interested in and they ultimately don't care as much about the remaining details as much as they care about there being rigidity and control.